


love shall be our token

by smithens



Series: good love [1]
Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Bittersweet, Christmas, Christmas Presents, Falling In Love, First Christmas, Flirting, Gentle Kissing, Hiding, Improper But Not Entirely Unwelcome Sexual Propositions, Long-Distance Relationship, M/M, Male Homosexuality, Sad And Thinly Veiled References To Sexual Intimacy, Secret Relationship, Unresolved Sexual Tension, Warm and Fuzzy Feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-28
Updated: 2019-12-28
Packaged: 2021-02-25 00:48:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,105
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22007218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/smithens/pseuds/smithens
Summary: Christmastide, 1927: Thomas and Richard meet halfway, in Easingwold.
Relationships: Thomas Barrow/Richard Ellis
Series: good love [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2146188
Comments: 33
Kudos: 131





	love shall be our token

**Author's Note:**

> this is late for christmas, but not late for the time-of-year setting of the fic itself, which, coincidentally is about now when i'm posting it.
> 
> although this scenario is referenced in [far away, the thudding of the guns](https://archiveofourown.org/works/21723229), i don't think this necessarily takes place in that universe, which is, the [hey, i just met you (and this is crazy)](https://archiveofourown.org/series/1557004) universe, so i guess that makes this thomas/richard version 10.0.
> 
> (WHY do i have ten different thomas/richard universes, why am i like this)
> 
> (richard's nickname in this is dick, like it or lump it, as they say)
> 
> title from the poem [love came down at christmas by christina rossetti](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Came_Down_at_Christmas).

"…then, I haven't had time off at Christmas in years," Richard was saying. He tilted his head just enough that the brim of his hat was no longer an obstacle, and Thomas could see him smiling.

It was December 28th; Richard was wrapping up a day-and-a-half worth's visit to his family by a meeting with Thomas: they were strolling through a quiet and drizzly Easingwold, a hand's width apart, and Thomas wanted so, so badly to hold his hand, or take his arm, or _be_ on his arm. 

Probably that one.

His train out of York was leaving in about two hours, and they'd hardly been together in the village for fifteen minutes. Their coats were damp and the chill was settling in as the sun fell further and further away. The day was short, the night was long, and they were only getting a sliver of both — and not in the way Thomas would have preferred, necessarily. After all, humdrum and slow as the street was, there were still people around.

But this was what they had. 

This would be enough.

In some other world they could show one another off as often as they cared to, make a whole night of it, but not in this one, so he had to make do with it — and he'd not forgotten everything Richard had said over the telephone the night before, all those words of caution.

"They really run you ragged down there, don't they," Thomas replied eventually. He was peeved on Richard's behalf — but then, he hadn't had time at Christmas off in years either, himself, although, unlike Richard, he thought, _he_ hadn't actually asked for it. It wasn't like he'd ever had anyone he wanted to see until now.

"You sound like my mum."

"Mrs Ellis knows what she's on about."

"Yeah, that runs in the family," said Richard, and Thomas knocked their shoulders together, chiding and affectionate.

When this was all over he was going to be unpleasantly damp and with frozen fingers and toes to boot, but there was something of the truth in romance novels, wasn't there. Being with someone he loved kept him warm.

Or warmer than he would otherwise be, at least.

"Well, er, I'm glad they gave it to you this year," said Thomas, halting and quiet. Saying it felt like he was confessing to something, sharing a secret that didn't quite cast him in a good light. It was an old faithful, that feeling, although why it would come up _now_ … 

"Me, too."

They were coming up on a church, secluded by high brick walls and a garden full of trees and hedges, and a shared glance told Thomas that they'd got the same idea. The grass was wet — he'd have mud on his shoes, damnit, but he'd got that from the street already — but there was a gravel walking path through some of it starting at the gate to the road, and so that was where they started. The place was well-maintained, too, and as far as he could tell they were alone on the grounds... which was what he'd wanted, after all, but there were only so many risks they could really take. Maybe if he had a sudden burst of bravery and they came up on the right spot he could take his hand?

No burst came. For a time, they only walked around, silent but for the sound of their steps and the drizzle of light rain upon the trees. 

And then it was dark, the only illumination that from the distant street lights behind them and two lamp posts, dim and far apart, in the churchyard. Enough that they could see one another's faces, that they almost had shadows.

In the back of his mind he worried that that might turn out to be more a curse than a blessing.

"Huh," said Richard mildly, as they approached the doorway to the church itself. "It's Catholic."

"Yeah, seems so."

After a brief pause, though, they kept walking around the building. There was anticipation budding in Thomas's chest, and he tried to stamp it out. Nothing was going to happen. Nothing was going to come of this.

They probably wouldn't even be able to kiss goodbye.

At some point they stopped again, and there was the misty rain and the warm light and in all of it Richard was more handsome than ever, which was saying something, wasn't it, and Thomas felt a pang of want and resentment in his chest — the former for the man in front of him, the latter at every single other person on the face of the planet.

Beside him, Richard reached out a gloved hand and touched the old beige brick of the church, fingers spread.

"Care especially for architecture, do you?" said Thomas, too sharp, too snide. He didn't know where it had come from.

Richard dropped his hand. "No."

And then Thomas wondered if he'd just stuck his foot in things, but Richard shook his head and smiled.

He mumbled "sorry," anyway, and Richard commented, "you're rather prickly sometimes, Mr Barrow."

_Rather._

_Sometimes._

He imagined the people he worked with and for might find that to be an understatement.

Thomas turned from him, looked up at the arched, dark windows. Rain speckled his face; he found he didn't mind.

"I get nervous," he said, honestly. "I – I just say things."

"I know."

"Sorry."

"I know."

From phone conversations and letters and the like, but also from…

Thomas looked back at him and smiled, just a little, probably weakly. "You, er… during the visit, you…" He swallowed. Leave it to him to get tongue tied most in front of someone so meaningful as he was. "You learned more about me in a day than most people have in seventeen years."

Because he'd bothered to ask, and because he was safe to tell.

"We had a few days," said Richard, blithe, but not unkind. He was trying to determine the mood, maybe. "And now we've got a few hours on top of it."

"Yeah," said Thomas, "yeah, I…"

"Yeah?"

They started walking again, along the narrow garden path through the tombstones, away from the church and its dark windows and looming spires.

It wasn't as eerie as it could have been.

"Thank you for this," he murmured. 

Richard hummed. "Had selfish motives." 

But he said it cheerfully, and all Thomas could think was, _no one has ever wanted to see me and called it selfish,_ a thrill down his back.

And then Richard added, "I gather you'd be tied down waiting hand and foot on the Granthams if I hadn't asked you out here."

Thomas laughed, a little hoarse. "Yeah, probably," he said

In his earlier years at work he'd always taken whatever time off he could and then some, this time of year or otherwise, but he didn't anymore. Last year had been his first as butler, so he wasn't about to skive that off, the year before he'd been at the Stiles', and it would have been pushing his luck, and before that… 

Before that, he'd been working through the season to make himself feel like he was any use at all.

"It is your right, you know," said Richard, a tad more seriously. Nagging. He had that side to him. "To have a rest."

"I do get half-days," he said.

_Prickly._

"Do you often take them?"

No.

"Can't always find a good time for it, being butler," he settled on saying. Richard would see right through him, but it wasn't _really_ his business… 

"You were about to stay in at the house feeling sorry for yourself this summer if I hadn't dragged you out of there, if I recall correctly."

Christ, there was a lot to defend there.

"You didn't _drag_ me."

"Thomas, you were reluctant until I had you in the car and the engine was going."

Thomas huffed, but then, he knew the answer to that one, didn't he. "Didn't want to give the wrong impression," he mumbled.

Or the right one, as it happened. It said something about Richard, too, didn't it, that he refused to take no for an answer. That could be a good or a bad thing.

The rain — already merely a drizzle — had slowed so much it had almost stopped.

For a long while, Richard didn't say anything, but Thomas imagined there were cogwheels turning in his head.

They kept walking, meandering, going in circles. It was nice to be next to each other whether they spoke or not, Thomas figured.

"If they gave you a week off," Richard said at last, and there it was, the product of his pondering, "no strings attached, just some time to do with as you liked, where would you go?"

"What, like of anywhere?"

"Let's keep it within the realm of possibility, why don't we."

Now, there was a question with an easy answer... An easy, forward, clingy answer. "Might like to see you," Thomas replied.

They looked at one another at the same time, then, and Richard smiled at him, warm and inviting and kind.

He still prodded, though, because of course he did. "Anyone else?" 

Thomas felt the tension creep back into his shoulders, and he wondered when he'd actually relaxed at all. "I'm not like you," he said abruptly, near scathing. "There's not – I don't exactly have people anywhere beckoning me in to hold hands round the fireplace and sing bloody carols."

 _Breathe,_ he told himself, _he doesn't deserve this just for caring._

"Yeah," said Richard after a moment. Ever gentle, without that sardonic tone he was prone to. "Yeah, I know."

What had he ever done to deserve this man in his life.

"Sorry," he said again, "not… it's not your fault, is it, that I – "

"Thomas, it isn't yours, either."

The words were sharp enough they drew Thomas to look at him again.

There was something in his eyes.

They'd discussed this before; it was an ordinary topic rife with things worth knowing about one another. But not like this.

Not face to face.

"Is that something you want?" Richard asked.

"What?"

"Folks round the fireplace."

Thomas sucked in a deep breath.

Deep down he wanted that more than anything, but he couldn't very well just say that, could he?

So he said nothing. _He will see right through you,_ he told himself again, but he was also the only man on the face of the Earth who… who Thomas didn't mind doing it.

"Next year I'll bring you by," Richard said slowly. He apparently didn't see the need to wait for an answer, which was another habit of his. "If you care to when the time comes, that is."

 _Next year_ and _bring you by_ and _when the time comes._

Thomas stopped walking; he turned to look at him, wondrous. "Are you joking?"

"No."

"But – "

"Might take some persuasion to get Mum to come around, but my dad would be delighted." Richard took a breath, hands awkward at his sides, and Thomas only stared at him. Fucking incredible. "Besides, we have a whole year, don't we?"

The mere idea was overwhelming.

"I can be very convincing, given time," Richard added.

Bloody hell.

"That you can, Dick."

The awkwardness swiftly ended.

"After all, if I could convince you to – "

Thomas couldn't bloody take it anymore; he grabbed him by the elbow, which shut him up immediately, and tugged him off the path, between the brick wall of someone respectable's house and a few conveniently imposing trees. To the street and the church itself they'd be invisible, though if anyone else happened to be walking about the yard and cemetery at half four in the evening on a Wednesday…

Far from looking disconcerted or disapproving, Richard was smiling — _uncertain,_ perhaps, but with an unmistakable twinkle in his eye.

He took off his hat.

With his left hand Thomas did the same; with his right he held Richard's cheek, and then without waiting for anything more he kissed him, close-mouthed.

And then Richard did what Thomas was beginning to think he always did, that being the opposite of anything he'd recently told someone (Thomas) to do: he deepened it, took his lower lip between his teeth – _oh,_ Thomas thought, a pleasant sensation coursing through him, _that's what that's like,_ because he'd forgot, when was the last time anyone had thought to do that – and snuck his free hand beneath his arm to wrap around his waist.

There was no word to describe it but lustful.

Thomas tilted up his head and hoped that he was meeting Richard where he was at as far as verve was concerned, because he didn't feel like he was, he felt like he was _melting,_ and he let himself relax against his arm with only a modicum of guilt and concern that maybe he shouldn't be giving in so easily.

Because he _was_ giving in, though he may have started it himself Richard seemed intent on finishing it, and his firm hold at the small of his back was persuasive enough, _convincing_ enough, God, that Thomas figured he may as well let him. He slid his fingers through his hair and stroked his thumb along his cheek, mouthed at his bottom lip and let him set the pace, thought about how he was going to look when this was over and how it was going to be Thomas who had done it to him — 

God, this was dangerous; they could lose everything —

Richard's hand fell lower upon his back, hinting, and though he shuddered, Thomas broke apart from him.

There was the beginning of anxiety curling in his gut.

"Not really your style, is it," he said breathily, raising his eyebrows.

Like he didn't want far, far more than this, himself.

Richard shook his head, but he breathed, "God, I've wanted to kiss you like that since summer."

"That all you've wanted?" 

_What am I saying,_ he thought, but he couldn't bear to wait for a reply; he pulled him down again and took more of the lead, this time.

Except then the anxiety turned to full-on fear. He jumped back, suddenly very, very aware of his own heartbeat.

"We can't."

"We shouldn't," said Richard. Thomas didn't know if he was agreeing with him or correcting him.

"Probably a priest or someone hanging about," he muttered.

"Mass is eleven and half six on Wednesdays."

Thomas looked at him, eyebrows raised.

"Sign on the door said."

Right.

He was more cautious than he ever let on, or possibly even knew about, Richard, and Thomas supposed that was what came from living in a place like London and being as they were. He wasn't so perceptive, himself, didn't ever think to check things like that. It got him into trouble.

Richard knew that very well about him, of course.

"Your train's at quarter til," Thomas said, although it didn't need saying.

They both knew it.

"We've got time yet while then," returned Richard, who maybe knew it less than Thomas did.

"Not to spend here," Thomas countered.

Richard nodded.

"I think that would be best."

But at least they had solved the problem they hadn't full on realised needed solving.

So they left their shadowy hiding place, and they left the churchyard, and if they walked too quickly in doing it then it didn't matter because no one was around to see.

There was a public house just across the way from the station, and they ended up there. Early as it was in the evening (not that it felt that way, but there's winter for them) the place was crowded.

Crowded in a way that they could have a spot to themselves and get away with talking about certain things, so long as they kept their voices low.

Richard bought them both a beer — "never had the chance the first time around, you remember," he said, and Thomas blushed, and then they were seated across from one another at a little table against the wall such that all that remained to be seen was what _certain things_ was actually going to be.

"Crowded," Thomas said eventually, for lack of knowing how else to start.

"Yeah."

He was only a conversationalist when he wanted to be, huh.

"At least the noise makes for privacy."

"Something like it."

"Close as we'll get," Thomas muttered, and he took a drink after, resigned.

For a moment, nothing; then:

"Could get a room," said Richard innocently, but Thomas had already said no by the time the last word was finished.

"Just a suggestion – cheers," and he raised his pint and then sipped from it with an odd expression on his face.

 _We're in public,_ Thomas wanted to scream, _you are so bad at taking your own marching orders._

He said, "Dick, we've got less than an hour," like that would mean anything if they were in the sort of place where _getting a room_ was anywhere remotely near a feasible suggestion.

The sort of place a railway station pub in Easingwold was absolutely not.

Besides, even if it was, Thomas wasn't keen for their first time to happen under those circumstances. For one thing, it would be nice for them to at least wake up together the morning after, although when they'd ever have a chance for that… _why_ was he thinking about this now, _why why why,_ and God, from the look on his face, Richard was about to say something that was going to make Thomas feel like a fifteen-year-old boy —

"Keeps you your virtue, then, doesn't it."

Thomas snorted, which was only marginally better than if he'd choked. "Oh, yeah, I've got plenty of that left to worry about."

Lucky the comeback came to him easy, because now that it was out of his mouth his head was spinning at the fucking implications.

 _Don't you smile at me like that,_ he thought, and as if to obey, Richard looked away, searching the room around them.

Thomas realised he was smirking himself and tried to stop.

"You ever gone this long with someone, without…" started Richard, and Thomas opened his mouth and closed it and then repeated that action a few times before shaking his head.

So they were really going to do this here and now.

"You?"

Likewise.

"Nice, in a way," Thomas offered. It made it clear this wasn't _just_ something, after all.

"One way of putting it," said Richard, and he straightened, leaning back in his chair and fixing Thomas with a searching gaze.

God.

Thomas raised his eyebrows back at him. "Playing the long game, are you, Mr Ellis?"

Richard drummed his fingers on the table; Thomas stared at them.

"It would be nicer if we had a choice of it is all," he said eventually.

"Yeah, well," Thomas said, "I mean, wouldn't everything."

"Yeah."

Where could they even go from here, he wondered.

"Sorry," said Richard, apparently reading his mind, and he sounded like he was at least a _bit,_ "I know that wasn't altogether suitable."

Thomas let himself smirk again.

"Are we, even?"

"Not in the eyes of some." 

"Most," Thomas supplied, not smiling anymore, and Richard nodded a little sadly and caught his foot between his own under the table, and Thomas decided that this was turning out to be the best and worst Christmas (three-days-after-Christmas) he'd ever had all at once.

* * *

It wasn't an alleyway, but it wasn't much of a step up from one, either — residential buildings on either side, and they weren't facing the flower boxes. There was an overhang of roof above them and a brick surface they'd gone ahead and put their hats and gloves on next to them; light came from the streets a stone's throw away on either side.

They were secluded, but hardly hidden.

Thomas was struck by the vague memory of witnessing, years and years ago, an exchange of gifts not unlike the one he was currently engaged in, only it was at a train station in broad daylight between two people very different to the sort that they were. It was London, he thought, before the war, at King's Cross maybe, back in the days where the Crawleys opened up Grantham House and brought the entirety of the household to the city, and one of the housemaids, Lily or Gwen or someone, had commented on how sweet it was.

And that was all he remembered.

That and the feeling that it was unfair and his life was unfair and everything was unfair and everything was always going to be unfair, and now here he was going on fifteen years later at _least_ and he was feeling exactly the same way, because he was hiding and sneaking and not even to do anything that was actually bloody _wrong._

 _Get it together,_ he told himself, _you're going on forty,_ but if only it actually worked that way, that age and time magically made someone into a rational, happy person regardless of all else.

"Thomas?"

"I – "

He startled.

"I told you not to get me anything," only a little accusing, because it was thrilling that he'd bothered even if it also made him very uneasy.

"You told me I didn't _have_ to get you anything; that's rather a different thing."

His exact words, if he recalled correctly, had been something along the lines of _don't get me anything because you feel like you have to, because you don't._

Of course he'd taken the loophole.

"Yeah, but you – "

"This isn't about settling a score," said Richard, in a my-word-is-final sort of way, and Thomas closed his mouth.

He kind of wanted to defend himself, but he couldn't very well make a proper case if Richard had got down to the root of the thing already.

It was unsettling, the way he could do that.

"But if it improves things for you," he added, more gently, "if you're going to," and here he paused in a way that made Thomas think he was trying not to say _be that way,_ "er, feel obliged over it, anyhow," definitely what he was doing, "my birthday's in May."

Thomas blinked at him.

"And yours was about a month ago."

"Little over."

For a half-second Richard looked annoyed, probably because Thomas had for reasons unknown even to himself not actually yet told him when exactly it was — it was by accident he'd even found it happened — but then he softened.

And Thomas understood.

"Thank you," he said, quiet. 

It was something, having someone who liked him despite how stupid and senseless and sabotaging he could be, despite all of the silly things he did.

When he said so, self-deprecating, Richard said, "Thomas, I like you _because_ of all of the silly things you do."

Oh, hell.

"Are you – "

" _No_ –"

And that was honest, but only barely. It didn't matter, though, because in less than a second Richard had his arms around him and Thomas's face was in his shoulder, and embracing felt like the most natural thing in the world.

Perfect on the first try.

"I don't know what you see in me," Thomas said, trying to make a joke out of it, and Richard kissed the side of his head and pulled away.

"I'd tell you," he said, smiling — might have been Thomas's favourite sight in the world, at that point, Richard's smile, "but I've got a train to catch, haven't I."

He did.

"Yeah," said Thomas, feeling slightly more like a grown man for having been given a moment not to be. "Maybe you'd better open that, then."

 _That_ being a fits-in-the-palm-of-your-hand size parcel in brown paper, tied up with a piece of silver and gold coloured ribbon that Baxter had handed to him when he'd asked her to pass him the twine.

Thomas held his breath as Richard undid the bow and unfolded the paper, only released it when he smiled.

"It's a – "

"Tie clasp," said Thomas helpfully. "Goes lower than the collar pin."

Like it wouldn't be obvious what it was to a fucking _valet._

"It's got a sheen to it," Richard said, tilting it in the palm of his hand.

That was good, since he'd had polished it. It wasn't silver, of course, he was pretty sure it was nickel, but no one would expect either of them to be wearing actual silver, anyway, so that didn't matter.

"It isn't – it's not new," Thomas said hastily. It was one of his own, something he'd got for himself during one of the times in his life he wasn't expected to be in a livery at all waking hours — maybe New York, it was modern-and-interesting enough to be American, but he was pretty sure it was older than that. He couldn't remember when and where he'd picked it up, exactly, but the purchase had been aspirational, to say the least. "Just something I've had, but – "

"It'll remind me of you."

He said it softly and seriously, and Thomas watched as he turned the clasp over in his fingers. There was a tingling feeling in his head; he had a budding sense of something in him, something in his lungs, something pumping from his heart.

Happiness.

He was happy.

"Yeah," he said, a smile coming to his lips without his trying. "Yeah, you… I figured I might… do the same as you did."

"Thomas, I love it," said Richard, "it's perfect," and Thomas nodded, the beginnings of a lump in his throat. 

He'd thought, in a moment of ludicrous fancy and steadfast, undue belief in his own restraint, of giving him his lighter, but the odds of him regretting that and then feeling guilty about it were high.

Maybe next year.

Maybe in May.

But he'd made a good choice here.

"I like the detail," Richard added, and Thomas was very proud of his taste as a twenty-something-year-old, or whenever the thing had come into his possession. "It's there, but it doesn't stand out too much."

"I didn't know how strict they were on the uniform," Thomas quipped, and Richard laughed, hearty, and God, it sounded better every time he did it; it made him feel warm and fluttery every time he did it.

The thing about the uniform was true, though. There were different standards for valets, and he'd seemed to be dressed abnormally fashionably for one that summer, but that didn't necessarily mean anything. London was London, after all.

"Not very, to be honest," he said. "Relatively."

"Relatively."

"His Majesty doesn't see me up close all that often," he clarified, and Thomas had absolutely no reason to feel smug about that, considering he had not in his life ever seen nor been seen by _His Majesty_ despite having had several opportunities five months ago, but he did. "And I can get away with a lot, besides, he likes me well enough."

"Lucky for me," he said.

"Yeah," said Richard. "I can wear it every day."

Thomas nodded.

" – I will."

Oh, that was why.

"I hope you do," he said, lowering his voice a tad, feeling vulnerable, and when Richard didn't say anything, he added, "I wore it when we went out."

Richard looked up at him — he'd still been staring at it in his hand — and said, "to York?"

"Yeah."

It'd been sitting in a drawer for a while before then, because he hadn't gone anywhere for a while before then. Or at least, not to any place where he'd been particularly concerned for his appearance.

Except it wasn't the place that had prompted him to wear it this summer, it was the person.

"I wanted to make a good impression," Thomas told him, trying to be flirtatious and maybe not coming off that way, and Richard gave him a look, tilted up his chin, considering, then turned his head to the street, and — 

This was why they were doing this in an alleyway.

Thomas put his hand to his face like before, caressed along his cheekbone, but they were calmer than they'd been earlier. It was easy and gentle and pleasant, Richard's hand warm upon his jaw, his lips soft upon Thomas's own.

Here was also something new.

The kiss didn't break so much as finish.

"You have a keen eye for what's missing," murmured Richard. 

"Do I," said Thomas, still breathless; he reached across the space between them to take Richard's hand.

"Yeah."

"And finding things that are out of place."

Thomas nodded, and then he considered it, and he didn't know if it was because he was unsure of himself or uncomfortable taking a compliment that he said, "I've had years of practise, haven't I, my line of work." 

Richard shook his head. "You know I don't mean just that."

"Yeah," he replied. He did.

And then Richard hummed and reached into his coat.

"I didn't get round to actually putting this in your hands, did I," he said, and Thomas laughed, accepted the parcel. His earlier apprehension had disappeared, somehow.

It was a scarf, felted with a fringe on the ends and ridiculously soft and in his favourite colours.

"I know it gets cold up here, and I saw it while out and thought of you," Richard said. He shifted his weight back and forth, looked away, then seemed to settle. "I know you won't have much occasion to wear it — "

"I will _make one,_ " interrupted Thomas, and he passed it between his fingers. No snags or catches. He wasn't going to think about what it might have cost, because he knew Richard wouldn't like it if he did, but it was probably one of the nicest things he'd ever had, had ever touched. "God, I – Dick, thank you."

He met his eyes.

"Thank you," he repeated.

Richard was smiling, and Thomas thought maybe in the same way he himself had been a few minutes ago.

"I've done it up that way for a reason."

Thomas raised his eyebrows, his earlier frustration snaking its way back into him, but he began, if gingerly, to unfold the scarf.

" _Oh,_ " he breathed, and then for the third time in the evening they were kissing.

* * *

It was one of the worst feelings in the world, sitting on a train going one direction while someone you loved was going the other, but the ache of unfairness was eased by the warm light of the carriage, like street lamps, and the steady sound of wheels rolling over tracks and a steam engine chugging, and the scarf around his neck, the photo he held, shielded from prying eyes by his hand, only for him to see. 

**Author's Note:**

> we do not see enough of thomas and his tie in the film to know definitively if he was or wasn't wearing a tie clasp, but i have decided (against probability, tbh) that he was, for the sole reason that (a) thomas is fashionable, and (b) his tie is laying flat when we do see it, and richard's often decidedly is not, which is really fucking cute (you wear a collar pin but still let your tie get ruffled............ sir.... it's different every time like!!!!!! hello!!!!!!), and that's how i got the idea for this anyway. gifts being sneaky accessories they can have on them without anyone knowing is just a very good concept that my heart warms to so here's that hat thrown into the ring
> 
> also, let the record show that i have probably seen every existing image of the catholic church in easingwold on the internet and i have no idea why i bothered in that but like. there it is. i've also seen many photos of the old now demolished railway station which, you may have noticed, is not actually a setting in this fanfiction! it's a ten minute walk from the church to where the station used to be, you're welcome for this information.


End file.
